Create a command for a Linux executable file

Question

I'm using a program called node-webkit, but I can't start the program without specifying the full path to the executable file. Is there any way to associate a command (such as node-webkit) with an executable file on Linux, so that the full path to the file won't need to be specified?

Answer 1

A third option, perhaps least intrusive, is to add an alias in your .bashrc file. This file is a set of options for bash which it reads every time an instance of bash is started.

• Open your .bashrc file with your file editor, for e.g gedit ~/.bashrc

• Add the below line to the bottom of your .bashrc file
  alias node-webkit=/path/to/node-webkit

• Do source ~/.bashrc to be able to use the alias as if it were a command.

The way this works is like #define in C/C++, when you type node-webkit, it will be replaced with the right hand side of the alias definition, which here is the full path to the executable.

Answer 2

In order for the binary to be executed with it's name alone, the directory containing the binary needs to be in one of the directories specified by your PATH environment variable. You can add the directory the binary is currently in to your PATH with the following:

export PATH="/new/path:$PATH"

You can place this in an initialization script for your shell, ~/.bashrc for example. When it is a single command, I typically symlink the binary to location already in my PATH.

ln -s /path/to/node-webkit /usr/local/bin

Answer 3

Sure ... symbolic links. The command is "ln".

me@computer:~> echo $PATH
/usr/lib/mpi/gcc/openmpi/bin:/opt/lsb-tet3-lite/bin:/opt/lsb/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/bin/X11:/usr/X11R6/bin:/usr/games:/opt/kde3/bin:/usr/lib/jvm/jre/bin:/usr/lib/mit/bin:/usr/lib/mit/sbin

This is your path variable. Say, you have root privileges, creating a symlink into /usr/bin makes sense:

cd /usr/bin
ln -s /path/to/your/program/node-webkit node-webkit